When Margaret Ives, the famously reclusive heiress, invites eternal optimist Alice Scott to the balmy Little Crescent Island, Alice knows this is it: her big break. And even more rare: a chance to impress her family with a Serious Publication.
The catch? Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud, Hayden Anderson, is sure of the same thing.
The proposal? A one-month trial period to unearth the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th Century, after which she’ll choose who’ll tell her story.
The problem? Margaret is only giving each of them tantalising pieces. Pieces they can’t put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story – just like the tale Margaret’s spinning – could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad … depending on who’s telling it.
I have only recently discovered Emily Henry but I have been slowly working my way through her backlist with Funny Story being my stand out favourite so I was looking forward to reading her new upcoming release Great Big Beautiful Life.
I have to admit this is the first one of this authors books that I actually found quite hard to get into. The first half of this book really didn’t grip my attention and I nearly DNF the book but I am glad I persevered because the book definitely picked up in the second half.
As we have come to know with Emily Henry books they usually centre on two main characters, which in this case would be Alice and Hayden and I was really interested in these characters as they competed to win the contract of writing Margaret’s book. The story kept pulling me away from them both to tell Margaret’s story but in all honesty I wanted to spend more time with Alice and Hayden!
The second half of the book we not only get to spend more time with them both but I also found my interest in Margaret’s story begin grow too as things began to tally up and make a little more sense.
There are many situations that are quite sensitive and many of the characters are all struggling with situations that have now shaped who they are today. What I did love was the unpredictable revelation that I didn’t suspect at all. There are a few light spicy scenes but this fits well with the storyline so it had its place.
This felt very different to her other books and although it isn’t a favourite of mine it was still a good read, just be patient while the story builds.
